Micro Layouts, the Final Frontier

Also, I have included a Small Layout page on this blog that has some of Carl's old tricks  Click here to view.  This page is still under construction, but you can still see some information.  Also, none of the ideas in the section dedicated to Carl are mine, but his.  His tricks are too good to leave out and that is why I have included them.
A micro layout is what Carl Arendt described as, "a small model railroad, usually less than 3 or 4 square feet that has a clear purpose and straight forward operation."  These layouts test the limit of human imagination and are attention getters.  If you are short on space, or need something to get to a train show, a micro layout is the best option.  But to build a micro layout, you have to know how to design one.
When I first saw Carl Arendt's site, I was somewhat skeptical about how well most of those railroads featured operate.  But I slowly sank into the site and I now have seen micro layouts' true beauty!  Operations on a model railroad all has to do with how you look at it.  Traditionally, a model railroad replicates the action of putting together a train, running it to its destination, and then dispersing of the cars.  This is what I like to call A to B operation.  However, with micro layouts, operation can only replicate a portion of the journey.  Dispersing of cars, or putting together trains.  This is all that can be successfully done on a micro layout because 4 square feet is impossible to replicate operations of a whole line.  This is what I call A to nowhere operation.  Operating a micro layout is truly fun, if you have the right thought.
So get out there and try building a micro!  They're cheap, small, light, and fun!

Re-building Rock Springs Gravel Co. continued

Well, due to the weather being warmer and pushing hard to keep grades up in school, I must admit that I haven't done much with my project on re-building Rock Springs Gravel Company.  however, I still have managed to accomplish several things:

• I have found places for all of the structures (all three of them).
• The track is starting to be re-ballasted.
• the first vehicle in the Gravel company has been put into service.  it is a 1/87 replica of a 950G front end loader.
• The loader has a hole in it so that I can manually load gravel into the cars.

So with that, here are some photos of my progress:

I finally have a track plan, if you look closely, you can see the track in the light gray lines.  I promise to get a better one to go in the home page.

Looking toward the west end of the gravel plant, you can see
where the final resting place of the loader will be.

Photos two and three feature the first piece of equipment for use in the plant, a handsome 950G front-end loader

Tilt your head for this one!  shows the track layout of the east end of the plant.

Here is the center portion showing near the top, the crossover into the plant.

The rest of the cross over as well as the tail track where the gravel loader is 

And finally, here is the west end of the plant.

Track Ratios

Ever wondered how big to make your model railway?  A couple weeks ago, I had recently signed on to an online forum for large scale called mylargescale.com.  This site is where the question popped into my mind.  At first, it seemed as though a simple ratio of trains: track length would be enough, however it wasn't.  The reason why is because multiple trains, traveling in opposite directions, need places to get around each other and some elbow room on the mainline.  After reading what other people thought about the subject, I realized that instead of a ratio, an equation may work.  The key to any equation relating to real life is that ALL of the variables must be taken into consideration.
The variables with this particular problem are the following :

• number of trains (roughly half traveling one way and half traveling the other way)
• scale speed of travel
• length of trains (average)
• derailments and other obstacles (requires time to fix)
• distance between trains

And here is what I was trying to find out:

• length of main line
• % of the main must be double (to allow for passing trains to get by)

So after much thought, it came to me and here is the equation:

number of trains X length of average train (inches) = total average length of all the trains (inches)

length of average train (inches) X 3 at least = total distance between each train (inches)

total length of all trains (inches) X total distance between each train (inches) = total mainline (inches)

50% of mainline should be double main line.  This is because half of the trains are going one way, half the other way.

Should a derailment occur, this is how much time there would be to fix the problem :

average scale speed of trains/scale of the models ie.. 87 (1/87th =HO) =  true average mph of trains   

average true mph of trains/ 3600 = average feet per second of a train

feet per second X 5280 feet in a mile

distance between trains (inches)/ 12 (inches per foot) = feet between trains

feet between each train/ average fps (feet per second) = number of seconds between each train.

Confused yet?  It makes more sense if you take your numbers for each variable and put it into the equation.  Let me use an example :

• each train is going to be 60" long
• there are 6 trains on the track at any given moment
•  scale mph for each train will be 30 scale mph

Now I can plug those figures into the equation:

6 X 60" = 360"

60" X 4= 240" between each train

360" X 240" = 86,400" of total mainline

43,200" of the main line has to be double main line.  This means that 3,600 feet of main line for all of these trains and 1,800 of the main line needs to be double main line.

To find out how many seconds there are between trains:

60 scale mph/ 87 = 0.69 true mph

0.69/ 3600 seconds per hour = 0.00019 or 1.9 ten-thousandths of a mile are traveled per second

0.00019 X 5,280 feet in a mile = 1.0032 feet per second

240"/ 12"= 20 feet between each train

20 feet between each train/ 1.0032 feet per second = 19.94 seconds between each train.

Of course, that is a HUGE train layout!  Most of us could barely fit 50 feet of main line into the space we have to work with.  However, if you want to know how big your dreams really are, then use this equation. 

 The example train layout can defiantly be smaller by doing the following:

• Reducing the length of trains two 36"
• Reducing the number of trains to two or three
•  Having a double main line to automatically reduce the total main line to half of itself.  This means that each main line is 50% shorter than if the main was a single track.

So try it out, you will be surprised how big or small your dreams may be.

By the way, I can't download diagrams here so you will have to use your imagination on this one : )